Tag Archives: living your life as you see fit

You know how we got that Hawk message? And it was about pre-signs that WOULD be coming our way? Yeah, I saw one yesterday on our way to Mom’s. I was looking out the window, trying to ignore Max’s whining and cat-like noises (seriously this dog is SO vocal) when I spotted a gorgeous bird, most definitely a hawk, circling and coasting on the winds, off to the South (Wands!!!). Then it turned, and went wing-flapping back in my direction. Stunning.

In my head I heard, “watch for it.” Which I figured meant that a message was on the way. Well, it arrived. In the form or our daily draw, and in an e-mail. (I was also aware of how yesterday we were told to Listen, too.) The card we’ll get to in a sec, but the other one I want to share now.

Forwarded jokes and internet scares and crap like that are not my favorites, some are sort of okay, but mostly I toss ’em. Every once in a while though, there is a nugget of great value hidden amongst the debris. And like this one, it echoed what I had already heard once, most recently. From my mother.

You guys know the “it’s not always about YOU, Diane” story, but I don’t think I told you the other one. It was probably less than a month or so before Gay died, and my mother had been outside, working in her garden and yelling at her god. Because that’s how she deals with her issues. Well, this one day, she was really tearing into Him/Her (as well as the weeds). And when she sort of had run out of steam she realized that she’d also come to the end of her row (beans, radishes, whatever, I don’t remember that part, because it doesn’t matter).

She sat back on her heels, in her platform gardening shoes, dirty hands on her small brown thighs, and squinted up to the sky. She says that in this exact moment, her eyes unable to focus from the tears and anger and sunshine, she saw her god. Or as she puts it, “Jesus or whatever-the-hell anyone wants to call real live shittin’ miracles that happen to plain old stupid people like me.”

And in her head she heard, “feel better now?” So she replied that yes she most certainly did. To which WhoEver said, “good, now we can move past this.” She felt relieved, she has told me, and as though she could face whatever was coming. Which was a fortunate thing, because in the end, she lost her baby girl, to a horrific and insidiously painful fucking disease. However, she also received the solace of knowing that her child lived a full and (mostly) happy life, and she KNOWS that her daughter can try again. She also KNOWS that we all go Home, no matter what.

No, my sister did not live much past her 43rd birthday, but all of those years she DID live, she lived them HER way, balls to the wall, bitching all the while, and never taking “no” for an answer.)

Mom and I’ve talked about all of this, a lot, over the years, and we both know, deep down and at our very soul level, we know that Gay Lynn lived her life the way she wanted and needed to, and then bailed, at the time which was right for her. She’d battled cancer for over ten years before it finally just came to stay, and she left. In yelling at her god, my mother got the answers she needed to keep going, this time, and then later on when she was told it wasn’t always HER lessons to learn. In today’s forwarded e-mail I got the same message.

Standing our ground, having our say, and being our own person are all going to be the stepping stones to making sure we understand fully who we are and where we belong on our own path. Here’s the other one, that goes with the god-yelling option:

God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

Substitute God for Universe, or Life, or The Force, and then go read that again. (I’ll wait……) Back now? Good, because that is SO worth comprehending. We are going with the belief that there IS some Something alrighty? (Pretend, just play along with me, if this is a particularly atheistic day for you, or skip on past to the card, you absolutely will not hurt my feelings, either way.)

What I’m getting at here is that we are lovable and loving and love-centered beings, who have much to accomplish. We most assuredly DO have our Blueprint of this life to follow, but we also have an inherent spirituality that goes a long way towards just moving us along. We can make our journey better or we can fight the progress.

By loving more, putting that positive spin on a situation, we will learn faster and easier. We will have negatives crop up and be just this side of debilitating, it’s life, shit happens. Acknowledge that. Some days we need to yell and throw a fucking fit. So we do, then we move on.

Once we’ve calmed down, or once some time has gone by and we are shown a few of the reasons for that particular ShitStorm, we can be grateful and we can count our blessings. It’s damn wild ride, but it’s OUR wild ride, so we may as well get as much out of it as we possibly can.

Six of Swords (R) ~ Vision Quest

We need to turn this around, and I’m hoping that these messages we were just shown are the way to do it. From the first time I began working with this deck I’ve been calling it one of the Vision Quest cards. Because the person in the illustration is on zir way to that cavern in the hillside, where the star is shining above the water, below the green grass on that rise.* The Swords are the lessons we’ve learned along the way, to arm us for our journey. We have the intelligence as well as the blades.

When we get this one Reversed it means that our boat and Guide are all ready to roll, or float, but we haven’t stepped in yet. What is keeping us from moving forward? What lessons have we not learned or accepted? Look at this scene, it’s clear and gorgeous out, we’ve got a way of transport, someone to help us, our bags (Swords) are packed . . . . what are we waiting for?

Think on this. Watch for signs. Feathers, birds, Hawk in particular. Listen. Or, if you feel that it will be more helpful, yell at your god. But whatever you do to make this message move forward, do it now.

*Over the years I’ve been guided to create whole meditation scenes about what happens when we get to go in there, inside that place under the hill.

Today’s Deck:

Robin Wood Tarot

Today’s Max Photo:

Not going to the pool.

He was very happy to see us when we got home though, and we were very happy to see that there were no “gifts” on the carpet. Later he went out and did his business like the beautifully well-behaved little guy he (usually) is. (Less than two full weeks, and counting.)